


Anger

by Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch



Series: Point of No Return Timeline (Emotional Solangelo) [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 02:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15062699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch/pseuds/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch
Summary: Nico and Will bicker a lot. Cecil, Lou Ellen and Kayla try not to get involved.Debates about song lyrics, sandwiches and card games.





	Anger

It started on a Monday. Cecil thought most things probably did. If it was up to him he’d ban Mondays. When he’d mentioned this idly one day, Conner had pointed out that if he did ban Mondays another day would just rise up to take its place, probably Tuesday. Julia had agreed with Connor’s theory up until the part about Tuesday and had posited that Sunday would be the new Monday because Sunday was a sneaky terrible con of a day and she didn’t trust it one bit. It was like Monday but worse because at least Monday had the grace to be a Monday, but Sunday was Monday in anticipation.

Alice had told them they were all stupid and when you lived at a summer camp year-round the days were all pretty much the same anyway.

It had all led to a lively and spirited debate which left Julia sleeping outside, Alice researching into whether or not it was possible to be adopted by another god, and Connor exasperated. It was still less trouble than the debate about that stupid song.

Will and Nico had started it. The two bickered so much that it was a fact of their relationship, so he’d initially ignored them both when he found them exchanging heated words at breakfast: Will with a pink flush in his cheeks and narrowed eyes, Nico on the point of summoning zombies. Okay so maybe they’d both been a bit more emphatic than usual, but it was early, and he had been trying to eat quickly to avoid Lou Ellen because she’d threatened to turn him into a pig, because he’d put dye in her shampoo.

(Connor had suggested, with less subtly than if he’d hired a plane to sky write it, that it might just be easier to ask her out. Cecil had suggested that Connor would look good with green hair. Connor had suggested that Cecil should just try it and see where it got him.)

So Connor had tuned out Will and Nico’s voices, wolfed down a waffle and then practically sprinted away.

At lunchtime Will and Nico were no longer talking to each other. He slid in next to Will in a consolatory way while Will stabbed irritably at his food. Nico wasn’t eating, just stared into space with a faint scowl.

Austin had his headphones in and appeared to be listening with intent, Kayla looked puzzled and Lou Ellen was nowhere to be seen so he guessed it fell to him to try and cheer up his friend.

“Everything okay?”

Will sniffed.

“It’s watch _and_ _see_ ,” he said.

Cecil blinked and wondered if he’d zoned out and missed some of the conversation.

“Watch her scream,” Nico put in insistently.

“Why would she be screaming?” Will demanded. “She’s dancing not being murdered.”

Kayla was looking even more puzzled, which he hadn’t thought was possible moments before.

“What are you two talking about?” she asked.

“Dancing Queen,” Will said. “Nico thought the line was “watch her scream” –“

“It is!” Nico interjected.

Kayla looked between the two of them.

“You’re both wrong,” said Kayla, getting involved and putting her life on the line. “It’s _watch that scene._ ”

Austin chose that moment to look up, and caught Cecil’s eye. Cecil gave him a look; Austin sighed and took the earphones out.

“I’ve been listening to it for the last five minutes. I originally thought Will was right, but now I’m going with Kayla. Besides watch that scene rhymes.”

“I don’t care that it _rhymes_ ,” Will said with considerable vitriol.

 “You’re all wrong,” Nico said. “Isn’t your dad supposed to be the god of music?”

Will’s expression could have cut steel.

By the end of the day the entire camp was involved. Will and Nico had been recruiting for their sides and people’s voices slowly got shriller and more infuriated as the day went on. (Julia lost her voice she was screaming so intently that the lyric was _watch the sea_ , but Cecil thought she probably deserved that for adding fuel to an already raging fire and screwing with everyone.) The original was compared to covers. The Mamma Mia version played at least ten times on repeat loud enough for Chiron to poke his head out of the Big House and glare at them. By early evening Cecil was ready to stab pencils into his ears just to stop hearing the damn song.

Things would probably have been okay if they hadn’t had a prearranged game of capture the flag. Even then things still probably would have been alright if Holly and Laurel hadn’t fallen in on opposite sides. At that point, chaos was inevitable and quite frankly Chiron should be grateful there was a camp left to punish.

Predetermined loyalties that had been carefully forged in the battle preparations were ripped apart. Two trees would have been burnt down if the naiads hadn’t ben so quick off the mark. Sherman got a black eye. Lou Ellen had to be spoken to severely about her habit of falling back on dark magic and could Miranda please be turned back human now? Holly and Laurel were the most emphatic. Holly’s hair had to be reshaped by Will (who didn’t really have any hairdressing qualifications other than steady hands) and Laurel’s eyebrows were singed.

And people still couldn’t agree what the correct lyric was.

Chiron, sensing he was about to have a full riot on his hands, made the executive decision that the lyric was watch that scene and then banned the song and any conversation about it effective immediately.

“Told you,” Kayla muttered.

Will glared, Nico scowled, but the ban held. Cecil didn’t think he’d ever appreciated silence quite so much.

*

“Triangles!”

“Squares!”

“Triangles!”

“What now?” Cecil asked.

Austin had been successfully drowning out Will and Nico’s latest debate with a mental violin concerto that he was trying to figure out if he’d heard somewhere or had composed. It took him a while to figure out Cecil had turned up, a second to two longer to realise Cecil was talking to him.

“Sandwiches,” he said with all the gravitas the argument required.

“Sandwiches?” Cecil asked. His expression was incredulous.

“Sandwiches,” Austin confirmed. “And how you should cut them.”

 Cecil groaned with feeling and slumped forward onto the table.

“It’s only Tuesday,” he moaned.

Austin nodded. It was only Tuesday.

*

Kayla wasn’t sure whether or not it was a steadfast rule that Cabin Counsellors were supposed to be present and correct and at least pretend to be leading at dinner. In case it was, she sought out Will. She tried the infirmary first working on a law of probabilities, but the room was empty. With it being so quiet at camp it was rare they got anyone for extended stays, rare they got anyone up there at all: most camp injuries (burns from the climbing wall; temporary amnesia that caused someone to forget that actually swords were sharp; temporary stupidity that caused forgetting the Ares cabin didn’t respond well to threats) could be dealt with on the spot.

Will still found excuses to be there. Shooting arrow after arrow calmed Kayla. Austin would fall into music (his latest obsessions were Beethoven and 80s synth pop, though not necessarily at the same time). Will gravitated towards the infirmary where his restless fidgeting could be disguised as tidying. (He’d been tying and untying a bandage around his wrist that morning, but she didn’t think he’d noticed he was doing it.)

Logically then, he should have been there.

She wasn’t worried, not yet. But it wasn’t like him to not be prompt in rounding of them all up for dinner.

Cabin Thirteen’s windows were dark. She knocked anyway, then let herself in when she heard voices. They were arguing. She opened the door and found Nico and Will sat facing each other cards in hand.

Right. Mythomagic.

“-and that’s not-“

“-you’re _cheating_ –“

 “-works –“

“-how else could you –“

“ – can’t _actually_ predict the future – “

Their arguing blended and muddled, like she was going between two radio stations. They hadn’t noticed her yet. Will at least had the excuse of having his back to her; Nico was just too focused on glaring angrily at his cards and Kayla was honestly surprised none of them had combusted under the intense heat of his fury.

“What even is heart of the cards anyway?”

Nico’s voice suddenly exploded, loud enough to be heard over Will’s protesting. He’d thrown his cards down, and finally spotted her.

“Dinner,” she said cheerily but pointedly. Both of them ignored the hint.  

“Tell him I can’t predict the future,” Will said quickly before Nico could start speaking again.

“Tell him repeating heart of the cards isn’t a tactic or a strategy and that he has to be cheating because no one is that lucky.”

“Tell _him_ that –“

“No,” Kayla answered raising her hands. “Not this time. I’m not getting involved.”

*

The week had been one of the slowest Kayla had known. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly why it was so slow, or what was wrong, but _something_ was.

She shot another arrow and it skewed to the right, thudding into the board just outside of the bullseye. She winced; pulled another arrow out of the quiver. She let it go without thinking, without letting out the frustrated breath she’d been holding, and it thudded into the blue ring. She swore, pouring her frustration into the word.

“Wow,” Lou Ellen said, coming up behind her. “Don’t let your brother hear you say that.”

Her tone was light, and she knew Will had said worse. Kayla let out the breath and lowered her bow.

“What are you doing up here?” she asked. Lou Ellen, who would quite happily admit that archery wasn’t really her area, seldom came up this far.

“Escaping the chaos,” she said. “Everyone’s on edge and its not doing my aura any favours.”

“Your poor aura,” Kayla said in response to Lou Ellen’s slightly sarcastic tone. But she knew what Lou meant. The war with Gaia was over. They’d adverted a second disaster. In theory the camp should have been happy.

It wasn’t.

After summer had ended everyone who didn’t stay year-round had emptied out, leaving the camp feeling emptier than usual. It was just the three of them now: her, Austin and Will. Lou Ellen was the only one in her cabin. Even the Hermes cabin was looking sparse, though Cecil, Julia and Alice were making up for that by each accurately impersonating the space and volume that three separate people would take up.

Connor was quieter though.

“Will and Nico are arguing again,” Lou Ellen said suddenly.

It had started on the Monday with the stupid song. At the time it had seemed like a regular meaningless and unimportant disagreement that had gotten slightly out of control, in the way meaningless and unimportant disagreements usually did. The sandwiches thing had blown over pretty quickly, and since she’d known games of monopoly that had almost come to blows the mythomagic argument was fair enough.

But –

“About what?” Kayla asked. “How much wood woodchucks chuck? Where the end of the rainbow is?”

Lou Ellen didn’t respond right away. Kayla turned to her, she was frowning.

“I don’t know. But they were vicious this time. Really vicious.”

Kayla frowned. Beyond the borders clouds were rolling in, thick and dark. In the woods the leaves were turning brown and as she watched some dropped to the ground. She shivered.

 

 


End file.
